Manifest Destiny and Neoconservatism - Two Idealogies or One?

As I read the account of President James Polk and the Mexican-American War, it was hard to resist a comparison between the deceptive actions and false pretenses of Polk and our modern day President George W. Bush and 'his' Iraq War. The book Out of Many points out that Polk’s behavior and the alleged misleading of congress into war marked “the history of congressional concern over the way presidents … exercised their war powers” and shortly thereafter mentions our contemporary issue of the Iraq War.

Polk, in his statements before congress, claimed that Mexico was a threat to the United States, and that “Mexican forces … assumed a belligerent attitude” toward the US forces. President Bush claimed that Iraq posed a serious threat to the United States, a pretense based on the existence of W.M.D’s, and even made correlations between the 9/11 attack and Iraq’s support of Al Qaeda. Both Bush’s and Polk’s justifications for military action came under intense scrutiny and criticism as being self-serving and holding a hidden agenda, and their claims for the need for warfare later proved false or exaggerated.

As the Mexican-American war raged on, initial patriotic fervor waned to party-based antagonism and then turned to outright opposition of the war, both in congress and among the people. In the Iraq War, the war was initially built on patriotic appeal based on recent terrorism attacks; but after the war was perceived to drag on past the administration’s first estimates and the initial concerns over W.M.D’s were exposed as spurious, the sentiment soon turned to raw opposition.

But can the similarities be deeper than circumstantial coincidence? The answer lies in a comparison of the ideals that drive the actions of the presidents in question. The two views are Bush’s ‘neoconservative view’ and the Manifest Destiny of Polk’s era. These two ideologies share a common foundation, and some have even argued that neoconservatism is a reworked, less overt form of Manifest Destiny with just less of an emphasis on racism and ethnocentrism.

Manifest Destiny was coined in 1845 by journalist John L. O'Sullivan, who stated in the New York Morning News “And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence [God] has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us” and established the divine mission of the great experiment of liberty (May). Note that the ideology was both moral and religious.


Strikingly, modern neoconservative views specifically relating to foreign policy were described by Irving Kristol in 1983 with very similar terms when he stated that "Neoconservatives believe that the goals of American foreign policy must go beyond a narrow, too literal definition of `national security'. It is the national interest of a world power, as this is defined by a sense of national destiny, not a myopic national security" (Prashad, italics my own).

Most notably, though, both the expansionist ambitions of Manifest Destiny and neoconservative foreign policy are inherently oriented around military force. “Manifest Destiny is… aptly equipped for conflict. Indeed, many have argued that war is inherent in this doctrine… Manifest Destiny drew upon centuries old themes of American civil religion; it proffered America's superior and chosen nature and its duty to redeem the continent and perhaps the globe, (1) as justification to expand America's geographical and political boundaries. Relying on these tenets, Presidents Polk and Tyler added more than 800 million acres of Mexican land to the United States in the mid-1800s through war and confiscation” (Coles).

Irving Kristol summarized the foreign policy of neoconservatism this way:

For a great power, the ‘national interest’ is not a geographical term… A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the … United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns.

The two ideologies also share themes of (1) a chosen nation, noted for its “political uniqueness” (2) concepts of “civil millennialism” where the US is viewed as the agent of God’s activity. Both ideologies create missions of divine direction to both serve as the example to the world and lead others to the freedom of the democratic savior (Coles).

In Joaquin Cabrejas’ Behind Bush’s drive to war – US Pres George W. Bush, the article notes that Bush’s neoconservative view of religion makes him “more likely to embrace the idea of a lust war” and create a case for a moral war, aside from the absence of secular and national security interests (e.g. absence of W.M.D’s).

A neoconservative view of religion can be seen in Bush’s comments: “The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them” (Winkler), and at the 2002 State of the Union speech, where he stated that “We've come to know truths that we will never question: evil is real, and it must be opposed” and identified this evil with Hussien and Iraq (Whitehouse.gov).

Additionally, Bush also referenced the prophet Isaiah when speaking to the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln, demonstrating further evidence of a neoconservative view of religion as it relates to US foreign policy:

All of you -- all in this generation of our military -- have taken up the highest calling of history. You're defending your country, and protecting the innocent from harm. And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope -- a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "To the captives, 'come out,' -- and to those in darkness, 'be free.'"

Thus George W. Bush’s appeal to the moral and civil religious aspects in an attempt to further national secular interests can be compared the to the shrouded motives of the appeal of President Polk who constructed a case for war and conquest on the patriotic and religious ideology of Manifest Destiny. The similarities between the Manifest Destiny ideology and modern neoconservatism are thus made apparent, and one can discern that perhaps neoconservative views may have arisen from the imperialistic ideology that once furthered the expansion of the United States on continental soil and may now be serving to further the global democratic expansion of the United States in its foreign policy.


Sources:

Cabrejas, Joaquin. “Behind Bush's drive to war - US Pres George W. Bush”. LookSmart.com. Humanist. Nov-Dec 2003. Gale Group. 25 July 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_6_63/ai_110459876.

Center for American Progress. “In Their Own Words: Iraq's 'Imminent' Threat”. Americanprogress.org. 29 January 2004. 25 July 2007. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b24970.html.

Coles, Roberta L. “Manifest destiny adapted for 1990s' war discourse: mission and destiny intertwined”. LookSmart.com. Sociology of Religion. Winter 2002. Association of Religion. Gale Group. 25 July 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SOR/is_4_63/ai_96254889.

Faragher, John, et al. Out of Many - A History of the American People. Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2006.

Kristol, Irving. “The Neoconservative Persuasion”. WeeklyStandard.com. 25 August 2003. The Weekly Standard, News Corporation. 25 July 2007. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=3000&R=785F27881.

Lobe, Jim. “Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception”. PeuplesMonde.com. 19 May 2003. Peuples & Monde. 25 July 2007. http://www.peuplesmonde.com/article.php3?id_article=159.

May, Robert E. “Manifest Destiny”. PBS.org. 14 March 2006. KERA Unlimited. 25 July 2007. http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/prelude/md_manifest_destiny2.html.

Polk, James. “James Polk Speech - War Message”. FamousQuotes.me.uk. 11 May 1846. 25 July 2007. http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/presidential-speeches/presidential-speech-james-polk.htm.

Prashad, Vijay. “The age of `neocons'”. Flonnet.com. 17 January 2004. Frontline. 25 July 2007. http://www.flonnet.com/fl2102/stories/20040130000506400.htm.

White House, The. “President Delivers State of the Union Address”. Whitehouse.gov. 29 January 2002. Office of the Press Secretary. 25 July 2007. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html.

White House, The. “President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended”. Whitehouse.gov. 1 May 2003. Office of the Press Secretary. 25 July 2007. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html.

Winkler, Carol. “The Use of Religious Arguments in Contemporary U.S. Presidential Discourse”. WFU.edu. 25 July 2007. http://users.wfu.edu/hazen/Documents/Winkler%20paper.doc.

Beasts With Angels in Them

In the discussion of equality and liberty, we often city the Declaration of Independence as applying to all human creation, with a narrow interlinear interpretation of the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We do not assign much critique to the words, perhaps due to the overtly plain yet subtle influence of the beginning references to “self-evident” truths, and assume that we understand the passage in the same manner as it was understood by he who originally penned it.

Is it fair to read a historic document with such a modern interpretation? The term modern interpretation I use loosely is relative to the model under which the original document was crafted and conceived. For example, immediately following the above citation, the document continues to identify how human interests relate to freedom and happiness stating “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Do we notice that our society seems more interested in the “pursuit of happiness” than the actual realization of happiness? Most recently I noticed this viewpoint in the movie The Pursuit of Happiness where Chris Gardner, portrayed by Will Smith, identifies a momentary point in time where he realizes happiness, after a painful pursuit of the elusive state.

Alexis de Tocqueville in his book Democracy in America addressed the American vision of freedom and happiness, viewing it from the outsider’s perspective as a French aristocrat and statesman. Although he never addressed the Declaration of Independence in his writing, his philosophical approach to understanding American liberty and its relation to happiness, while excluding the very document that is credited with founding the American ideals of equality and freedom, provide an insight not often realized.

For example, Tocqueville noticed that Americans tended to reduce people to nothing more than beings with self-interests, and thus they could not truly enjoy freedom. In other words, the idealized American of middle-class status is not really free but rather a slave to work and production, without any free time to enjoy leisurely activities that eventually are considered that of the privileged. This must have been especially obvious to him being that his study of the American culture took place during the industrialization and commercialization of America and the birth of the American middle class. During this time is when America really put its nose to the grindstone, and many traded the unstructured lifestyle of the farm life for the whistle-and-bell reigned factory employment. At this point is when America began to truly create a class that embodied the spirit of hard work and the pursuit of something better, while trading in the very activities and leisure that defined Happiness.



Sources:

Faragher, John, et al. Out of Many - A History of the American People. Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2006.

Jefferson, Thomas. “Declaration of Independence”. The Declaration of Independence. 4 July 1995. Independence Hall Association. 20 July 2007. URL.

Lawler, Peter Augustine. "Tocqueville at 200.(Alexis de Tocqueville)." Perspectives on Political Science 35.2 (Spring 2006): 68(5). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. CCL Diablo Valley College. 20 July 2007. URL.

Tocqueville, Alexis de. “Democracy in America”. The Alexis de Tocqueville Tour
Exploring Democracy in America. 20 July 2007. URL.

The Panic of 1819 and the Almighty Dollar

America's most influential force, in my opinion, is not its military might, but rather its economy. It is fascinating to see how our great economy struggled in its early infancy. In reading Out of Many, I took a special interest in the description of the Panic of 1819, part of the period known as the ‘free banking era’. Free banking wasn't completely free of regulation, since the States did regulate banks that operated within their borders, albeit very loosely. The lack of true regulation, coupled with a great reluctance to use the Second Bank of the US, brought forth the free banking era. During this period of free banking we see the importance of a stable centralized banking system and the FDIC insurance we all take for granted. The book really sums it up when it states that “The Panic of 1819…showed how far the country had moved since 1800, from Jefferson’s republic of yeoman farmers toward a nation dominated by commerce” (Faragher).

Free banking appeared destined to fail, with runaway state banking operations throughout America setting up for a grand failure. One example of why free banking was set to fail is that of ‘wildcat banks’, termed as irresponsible lending institutions in Out of Many. The book just briefly mentions wildcat banks, which historically are viewed as crooked banking institutions based on planned failure. It is thought that wildcat banks would open shop in rural, backcountry areas (in areas where wild animals roamed, hence the wildcat name) issuing notes it never planned to honor. Their inaccessibility bought them time, delaying the redemption by the note holder, until the bank was able to close up shop and move somewhere else. But this colorful characterization may be untrue; instead “the value of the bond reserves [held by banks] could and did decrease substantially. This suggests that backing notes with a constant promised value by long-term bonds with large price fluctuations was a major defect of free banking”, and not irresponsible lending (Hasan). The bond reserves held by the banks were based on the Second Bank, and the Second Bank was in the middle of credit contraction.



During this period, bank runs also became commonplace (due in part to the wildcat banking fears and the Second Bank’s credit contraction), and contributed to, if not led, the failure of free banking during this time. Bank runs can be explained this way: banks do not hold all the money deposited into them, but rather they lend most of it out as loans, thus their ‘reserve’ is limited. If all depositors were to try and withdraw their money, the bank could not convert all of the notes (paper money) to specie (coin or metal value), and would either have to call the loans in, or go bankrupt. A surge in depositors who choose to withdraw their funds based on speculation of the bank’s insolvency or impending failure (even if only perceived) can lead to the bank’s actual failure. This is called a bank run (see picture to left).

Had you lived in the free banking era, your wallet would not contain just one form of currency, but many different notes from various state banks. Here are some pictures from Beeslife.com that show the currency of 1857, printed on onionskin paper.

Sources:


“Broken Bank Notes - Pre-1861.” Beeslife.com. 7 July 2007. URL.

Faragher, John, et al. Out of Many - A History of the American People. Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2006.

Hasan, Iftekhar, and Gerald P. Dwyer Jr. "Bank runs in the free banking period." Journal of Money, Credit & Banking 26.n2 (May 1994): 271(18). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. CCL Diablo Valley College. 14 July 2007. URL.

Pictures source:

“The war of wealth” by Strobridge & Co. Lith. Library of Congress – Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. URL.

“Broken Bank Notes - Pre-1861.” Beeslife.com. 7 July 2007. URL.

Liberty and Freedom - Now with 50% more DECEIT!

It is conflicting to think that American democracy was established by men who had established their wealth and political power largely on the backs of slaves. The economy of the colonial era revolved on the labor of slaves, and thus those who arrived with intentions to grow their wealth found that slavery was a necessity to business success. One can thus make the argument that slaves provided the conduit for liberty and democracy, but ironically although both the Patriots and slaves shared the common core desire for “liberty”, they shared not the same vision for its execution.

The irony is too great to deny; the Revolutionary War “through the eyes of enslaved blacks turns its meaning upside down. In Georgia, the Carolinas and much of Virginia, the vaunted war for liberty was, from the spring of 1775 to the late summer of 1776, a war for the perpetuation of servitude”. (Schama) Yet, the perpetuation of servitude translated into a life of "liberty and the pursuit of happieness" to a select powerful few, whom did not include Black slaves, servants, the poor, or women.

Oppression must always have an oppressor and a victim, and in the case of slaves in America, there existed more than one source of oppression and/or exploitation. Slaves were quickly identified as pawns for the advancement of each side in the battle between Loyalists and the Patriots. For example, “there were also many blacks who gave the Patriots the benefit of the doubt when they listened and read of their war as a war for liberty…By contrast, the proclamation of John Murray, Lord Dunmore, the last Colonial governor of Virginia, from HMS William on November 7, 1775, unequivocally promised outright liberty to all slaves escaping from Rebel plantations, reaching British lines and serving in some capacity with the army”. (Schama)

With slaves holding a formidable percentage of the population of plantation colonies and even port cities, a prudent Patriot or British leader could not deny that these humans, denied of freedom (and the pursuit of happiness), would seek to side with whomever they saw most likely to grant them their freedom, whether that be the promise of a court case an entire ocean away, or the romantic movement of the Patriot.






Africans in America. Author Unknown. Online video. Video.YouTube.com. 2006. < http://www.youtube.com/v/CgqHwzS9HKM>.

Faragher, John, et al. Out of Many - A History of the American People. Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2006.

Schama, Simon. "Dirty little secret: to see the Revolutionary War through the eyes of slaves is to better understand why so many of them fought for the crown.(PRESENCE OF MIND)." Smithsonian 37.2 (May 2006): 102(8). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. CCL Diablo Valley College. 7 July 2007
URL HERE.

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. HarperCollins Publishers; New York, New York. 2005.

Slavery - Always equated with "African" slavery?

In the reading of Out of Many, by various authors, the focus is on the African slavery of colonial America. The African slavery account is one that is rightly recorded as of the most brutal sort in all history, beginning with the inhumane and reckless Middle Passage, and later how displaced Africans were transported to colonial America to serve out the rest of their condemned lives under the ruthless oppression of the plantation owners who sought cheap labor.

But I think that Zinn's work in A People's History of the United States provides a more balanced account of the type of slavery that was found in colonial America. For example, in chapter 3, page 35, Zinn describes how English residents were also exploited for colonial labor:

"In the 1600's and 1700's, by forced exile, by lures, promises, and lies, by kidnapping, by their urgent need to escape the living conditions of the home country, poor people wanting to go to America became commodities of profit for merchants, traders, ship captains, and eventually their masters in America." (Italics mine).

Generally, when we think of slavery in colonial America, we think of the African slavery, and not of the "White" slavery that colonial America also benefited from commercially. African slavery carries a much more ominous spirit, being that it was reinforced by already existing racism and the belief that Africans were "heathen" and thus not under the grace of God. Africans were ripe for exploitation in the eyes of greedy European merchants for these reasons and more, but this did not prevent the exploitation of White lower-class peoples. The reference in Out of Many to the conscientious objection to Christian slavery was more than likely the Clergy's exercise in formalistic but empty perceived piety, and not representative of those desperate Europeans who were looking for financial gain in a time of little opportunity.

The White underclass who were also condemned to a short existence in the harsh reality of colonial America were not as easily identified by their skin color, but the stratification of European society identified them as useless and of no real value to "civilized" society, and thus also well suited for indentured servitude.

One cannot deny how some White underclass persons were exploited in nearly the same manner as African persons, being involuntarily drug from their homeland via horrific sea passage to a foreign world of harsh servitude and crushing work. This is because the slaver traders and plantation owners alike saw these two groups in the very same manner, as COMMODITIES to be exploited for their selfish gain. There may have existed distinctions in the types of contempt, either racial or caste, but not in how they lacked seeing the dignified existence as human beings.

Ironically, revolts against their masters among these two groups were sabotaged by promoting the very insidious racist views of the elite into the underclass. Zinn states that "racism was becoming more and more practical" in its use by the elite to control the serving class. Thus the White slave was converted into a weapon of social disruption against the otherwise merging societies of African and White slaves, and once again the elite class maintained their status on the backs of now two distinct groups instead of the slowly homogenizing one, that of White servants and African slaves.

Below you will find a 13 minute video on the enslavement of the White underclass in colonial America. It is not the most scholarly source I could find, but what it lacks in reference and citations, it makes up for in dramatization and production. If the video doesn't work (which often times it doesn't), follow the link below it to see it direct on the Google source page.




White Slavery In Colonial America

SOURCES:

Faragher, John, et al. Out of Many - A History of the American People. Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2006.

White Slavery in Colonial America. Dir. Randall C. Smith. Online video. Video.Google.com. 2006. URL.

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. HarperCollins Publishers; New York, New York. 2005.

Module 2 - History 120

The European invasion of the Americas displayed the dark side of human nature, and indeed it was a terrible time, but especially for the indigenous people of the Americas. For the inidgenous people, the expansion of Europe proved to be the begining of the end of their prolific and comfortable existence, and nothing short of disastrous for them.

It's interesting to note the degree of cruelty used by the early explorers and settlers. Their stark disregard for human rights and ethnocentrism is shocking. It is difficult to concieve how persons can remove all moral direction, particularly since the Europeans supposedly based their morals on the Christian teachings.

But the initial explorations were flawed from the moment they were conceived, since their were founded on the selfish greed of powerful monarchs and merchants. Could we really expect Columbus to have behaved any differently, being that his moral compass was misdirected by his commitment to his investors, as a first rate business man? (See a short video on Columbus as a business man at the History Channel website by clicking HERE.)

Blogging Assignment - Quick Reference

Next, take a look at the following guidelines for your history blog:

Notice on the schedule that there are essentially 6 modules with reading, audio/video and a quiz. You will be required to post to your blog 5 times (50 pts for each post). While you will be required to read and take the quiz for each module, you may choose for which module you do not want to post to your blog.

Remember that blog posts will be due by Midnight of the last date indicated for each Module. For example, the post for Module 2 is due by midnight, June 26.

Essentially, a blog entry should be three to four paragraphs—roughly 300-500 words or the equivalent of 1–2 double-spaced pages.

While there are many things that one can post to one's blog, you will want to be sure that you are mindful that your posts, including other content (videos, photos, etc.) should deal with North American History from the 1500s through 1877.

Each post should refer to the course material (using proper citations) for that module.

Each post should have a title.



By the end of the summer, your blog will have:

--at least two primary sources, properly cited and integrated into two separate posts. You may include the primary source itself in your blog post, or you may simply include a link to the source. You might start here in your search for primary sources.

As part of your integration of primary sources into your study of history, I suggest you consider questions that historians ask when looking at a primary source. Be sure to choose a source or sources that you find interesting. Ideally, the sources you choose would have some sort of relevance to what you want to do professionally or academically. Most historical writing combines both narrative and exposition, tells a story and explains significance. Use the sources you choose to do this.

--one multimedia source (streaming audio or video, mp3, mp4, screencast, or PowerPoint/Keynote presentation) on which you comment as part of your post; again, you should cite the source in your post. Here are some suggestions.

--at least one historical photo on which you comment as part of your post; cite the source in your post. You might check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources

You should comment on these sources in your blog and/or use them in some way to construct your post.

--------

Online writing and reading differs from print for a variety of reasons. Clarity is the name of the game. You want your reader to be able to easily read your blog. Use the following format:

1. You might include a post number or the module number for which you are posting.

2. Space between paragraphs (which is an incorrect thing that some students do in their physical papers)


4. Titles of books should be italicized, titles of articles or documents should put in quotation marks, and so on.


5. Text links to comments should use the author’s name. Do not simply use a URL.


6. Use text links to sources on the web. Do not simply use a URL.


7. Use images carefully: resize proportionally and include them either by centering or running the text around them.

8. Choose a color scheme that is easy to read.



Other suggestions:

You might want to draft your entry in a text editing program first and copy and paste after you have finished. Use a plain text editor, such as Notepad on a Windows platform or Tex-Edit on a Mac, to avoid pasting in all sorts of weird characters that result from using MS Word. Once you have written your post and put it in the edit window, be sure to publish and proof it online to ensure that you have space between paragraphs and that any images are where you want them to be.



Examples of History Bloggers:

History News Network (http://hnn.us/articles/1572.html)

PhDinHistory (http://phdinhistory.wordpress.com/)

Eric Alterman (http://mediamatters.org/altercation/)

Invisible Adjunct (almost legendary by now) (http://www.invisibleadjunct.com/)